When you read about Jason Mantzoukas' ideal Sunday in Los Angeles, it's important that you imagine him holding a cup of coffee in basically every place and situation. Know all the places in the city where you can get caffeine before doing anything else.
In Sunday Funday, the people of Los Angeles tell us step by step their ideal Sunday in the city. Find ideas and inspiration on where to go, what to eat and how to enjoy life on the weekends.
Fittingly, the actor, comedian and podcast host has brought an exciting, unpredictable and fun energy to his roles on shows like “The League,” “Brooklyn Nine-Nine” and “Big Mouth.” Last year, he brought his light-hearted sense of mischief to the British competition series “Taskmaster.” And Disney+ recently finished streaming the second season of “Percy Jackson and the Olympians,” where Mantzoukas plays Mr. D (aka Dionysus), and will soon wrap up a season on Broadway, where he stars in Simon Rich’s “All Out: Comedy About Ambition.”
For the continually busy mantzoukas, sometimes the perfect Sunday means never leaving the house. “All I want to do is make a whole cup of coffee, grab the newspaper and a big stack of unread comics, and sit on the porch.” When exploring the city, he prefers places where he can also spend some time. But before that, how about a recharge?
10:30 am: First cup(s) of the day
I'm a night owl, so especially on Sundays, I go to sleep in. Then I make coffee. My first three cups of coffee are all from home. I'm making a French press. Los Angeles beans, although neither Counterculture either Go find them tiger They would be my favorite beans. That and the newspaper are the beginning.
Almost immediately when I get up, I'm going to start playing the radio. my mornings are LAista or Howard Stern if it's a weekday. But on Sundays, I try really hard not to talk, just music. Is jazz, or something like that. I'm also obsessed with a radio station called WYAR Which I can't recommend enough. It's music from the '20s, '30s and '40s. It's the smallest radio station in Yarmouth, Maine.
Noon: Brothers walk
I've walked with the same guys for years. They're all guys I've done comedy with for over 20 years. We generally do one of the Griffith Park walks because it is convenient for everyone. The topics of conversation are: What is happening to us physically? What medical recommendations do we desperately need? So it's gossip: gossip inside our world, gossip outside our world. So it's just a serious conversation, like an emotional check-in. And then a lot of dumb things, like really dumb things.
We do these walks a couple of times a week, and it's so fun that we've started doing an improv show at the Elysée Theater that's called Hike Bros. It's just us trying to approximate on stage what we do on hikes. It's ridiculous.
1:00 p.m.: comics replenishment
After the walk, I am in a good position to go to secret headquarters in Atwater Village, which is my home comic book store. They keep a list of comics I want them to pre-order each week.
There's a series of graphic novels called “Hobtown Mystery Stories” that say: What if David Lynch wrote Hardy Boys, Nancy Drew-style teen detective books? I really liked them because I was at Secret Headquarters and one of the people there said, “Oh, I bet you'll like that book.” On the Internet I miss having those trustworthy people.
2:00 p.m.: excavation recording
I want to kill time in a way that's focused on discovery, exploration, but also like, “Oh, I want things.” That's a record purchase. Los Angeles has always been Amoeba For me, simply in terms of I love wasting hours in a store that has a deep bench for every section of music I'm interested in. And then, if you want to do extra work, DVDs too. There are a lot of cool little record stores in the city that I love, but there's something about killing two hours at Amoeba.
6 pm: dinner
What I want from a dinner in Los Angeles is to just hang out there. Little Dom It's a big drop. You can spend hours there. You will always meet people. My hope is that we can all hang out and not be rushed out because they have another seat.
8 p.m.: Night activities
I'm going to want to do one of three things at night:
I want to go to the movies and I'm talking. Vidiots and the View and the New beverly. We can all go to all the usual movie theaters and see all the blockbusters, but Los Angeles has fantastic movie theaters that offer incredible programming.
If I don't go to the movies, I want to see live music as much as I can, but on a much smaller scale than before. I get excited when an artist I love like Mary Lattimore or Jeff Parker has a residency at Zebulun because I think, “Oh, great. It's not a big crowd. It's very easy, very manageable.”
So I want to do a comedy show or watch a comedy show. There is such a vibrant scene now. The Elysian in Frogtown is a great place. We do Dinosaur Improv in Long. I think Largo is pound for pound, maybe the best place in town. dynasty typewriteranother big one. UCBthe OG. Over the course of a month, these are all the places I play shows, but they're also places that show some of the best comedy in Los Angeles.
11 p.m.: The missing piece
At this point I am no longer social. I don't want to talk to anyone anymore. My goal when I get home is to solve a puzzle, with a podcast or jazz playing in the background, probably until 2 in the morning.
I make these puzzles from a company called elm puzzle and they are hand cut, so they are incredibly difficult to make. It will take me a month to make one. They are prohibitively expensive, so much so that I don't buy them. They have a rental program. They send you a puzzle, you do it, you send it back to them and they send you another puzzle. Which is perfect, I don't need to do a puzzle more than once.
It's a great way to get ready for bed, especially if I've binged a show or watched a movie. If I've been stimulated, doing a puzzle for a couple of hours is a great way to decompress.
